Dance With A Gunfighter (7 page)

He puffed on the cigarette. The scent of sweet tobacco
mixed with the strong aroma of brewed coffee were warm familiar smells,
home
smells. They brought back, with the force of a stampede, all that she had lost.
Her chest ached with unshed tears--tears that had not fallen since she awoke in
Mrs. Beale’s home and learned of her family’s deaths.

McLowry began telling her about Bisbee, little nonsense tales
that didn’t make much sense and held even less interest to her. Slowly, as he
talked, she pulled herself together. And as his tales continued, her interest
grew until she found herself listening and with enjoyment.

o0o

After supper, they returned to the hotel. As McLowry
opened the door to the room he shared with Gabe, he acknowledged that he had
been purposely putting off thinking about their sleeping arrangements.

She was just a girl, he told himself for the tenth time
that day, a kid who was grieving over her family’s death, and who needed to
realize that she couldn’t avenge their killers. He had to convince her that
going after Will Tanner was simply too dangerous. He hoped that after a little
while of this revenge idea, she would be so homesick she’d be willing to run
back to Jackson without a horse.

"I’ll sleep on the floor," Gabe announced. Her
words surprised him. Obviously, her concerns mirrored his own.

"That’s all right," he said, feeling gallant.
"You take the bed."

"The floor’s fine," she insisted dismissively.
"It’ll be a whole lot better than the ground I’ve been using."

He could scarcely believe her arguing with him. "I
said no."

"You paid for this room, McLowry. I won’t put you out
of your bed." Her words broached no argument.

"And I," he stated in an equally matter-of-fact
tone, "won’t let a girl sleep on the floor."

She crossed the room and picked up her bedroll. "Then
I’m leaving."

"Wait a minute! You are the most stubborn
child."

"I’m not a child, so you can stop bossing me and feeling
responsible for me. I’ll see you in the morning." She marched toward the
door, hand outstretched for the knob.

"Stop! We can work this out."

Her mouth curved into a frown, but she waited.

 "We’ll split the bed." He didn’t bother to
mention that if he was lucky at the saloon tonight and found the warm comfort
of a mature woman’s bed, she would end up with this one all to herself anyway.

But instead of her agreeing to his sensible terms, he
watched her face redden from the roots of her hairline to the neckline of her
shirt. Her back stiffened up straighter than a fence post. "I may not look
like a lady, but I know what’s proper between men and women. I’ll sleep on the
floor or outside. Take your pick."

It took a moment for him to even realize what had gotten
her so riled up. Cold fury struck him that this scrawny slip of a girl, wearing
men’s clothes, her hair chopped off like a boy’s, would dare talk to him about
what’s proper. "You think I’d--" He couldn’t even say it. He waved
his arm in the direction of the bed. "Damnation! Believe me, your virtue
is safe with me. What do you think I am?" He took a step toward her, then
stopped, realizing that would only make the situation worse. "I swear if
you aren’t the most troublesome girl I ever tried to do a good turn for! I
should have left you on that mountain!"

"Maybe you should have!" Her cheeks flamed.

He glared at her. "Sleep on the blasted floor, then.
But you’ll stay in this room where it’s safe and warm. Do you hear me?"

She didn’t answer, but began opening and shutting dresser
drawers. In the bottom drawer she found a spare blanket, pulled it out,
unfurled it with one hard snap, and spread it on the floor. "This will be
quite comfortable, thank you!"

"Quite," he mimicked. He tried to squash his
anger. How had she managed to provoke him so easily? Taking his tobacco pouch
from the dresser top, he sat on the wooden chair near the window and rummaged
in his vest pocket for cigarette paper, still smarting at her reaction to his
perfectly respectable suggestion. If he wanted to be disrespectful, it sure as
hell wouldn’t be with a skinny chit like her.

She plopped herself down on the blanket. Facing away from
him, she pulled off a high leather boot and sock, then straightened her leg and
wriggled her toes.

A jolt hit him as he stared at her small foot and narrow
ankle. As she leaned over to the other boot, his gaze traveled to her tiny
waist and shapely hips. He jumped to his feet. The pint-sized room offered no
reprieve. He placed his tobacco sack back on the dresser and moved in front of
the window, looking out onto a narrow street. "You’re about how old now?
Eighteen?" he asked.

"Try twenty."

Twenty?
Had it really been that long?

"Why do you ask?" she said.

He shrugged. "Nothing. Just curious."

"How old are you?" she asked.

He turned and faced her. "Why?"

"Same reason."

He walked to the bed, took the pillow, and tossed it over
to her, then sat back in the chair and lit his cigarette. "I gave up
counting birthdays years back. I’m twenty-seven or so, I guess."

"Really? I thought you were older."

His eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing.

She tucked the pillow against the wall, then scooted
around to sit with her back pressed against it, her legs stretched out and
crossed at the ankles. "Where do you hail from, McLowry?"

"South Carolina."

"You’re a long way from home."

"After the War, there was no more home."

Silence, then, "I’m sorry. I should have
realized--"

"It was a long time ago."

She ran her palms back and forth along the rough coarse
cotton of her trousers. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. "Time
doesn’t matter in something like that though, does it, Jess?"

He wanted to tell her he never thought about his boyhood
any more. Not about his parents, or his friends, or his little sister. But to
his surprise he, who had easily and readily told other women words they wanted
to hear, couldn’t lie to her. "Maybe not," he admitted. "But
time makes it easier to get through each day."

She went still and he saw in her eyes surprise that he
understood the struggle she was going through. Her gaze drifted away then,
unseeing, to that terrible world of memories.

He remained silent, taking in the measure of her, while a
caution grew within him. He couldn’t allow her too close. There was danger to
that. Danger in forming any attachment to another person, or in letting them
form one for you.

But despite his warnings, something about her was
burrowing deep.

Even that funny, short haircut of hers intrigued him. He
had a hunch that if she wore dresses and had long hair like other women, he
could deal with her like he did other women. Without a second thought. Instead,
here he was giving her second and third thoughts. He would be damned if seeing
her on that blanket, in trousers, a man’s shirt and bare feet wasn’t one of the
most tantalizing sights he had ever witnessed.

He ran his hand through his hair. Music from the dance
hall wafted up through the night air. He’s come to Bisbee to find card games
and whiskey. Seems he needed to add women to that list. Mature, available
women.

He stood up and strapped on his gun belt. "I’m going
out for a while, Gabe. You get some sleep."

She bent forward. "Isn’t it pretty late?"

"Not for me. I think I’ll play some poker."

"Ah, I see." She leaned back against the pillow.
"My pa used to go to town, too, for poker."

He couldn’t tell if she was serious or if she had other
ideas about what her father might have been going off to do. Then he wondered
about the sensual twists his thoughts had taken. He definitely had to find
himself a woman.

He put on his black, flat-topped Stetson and yanked it low
on his brow. "Good night," he said. "Don’t wait up."

Chapter 5

His side aches from running...His throat burns from
quick gulps of air.

Red South Carolina clay slaps against his feet with
each jarring step.

Tall, fire-blackened chimneys...

Glendorra.

Hot, angry tears wet his face. Around him, charred
ruins, land gone fallow, thin, starving strangers.

Mama...Lucy...where are they? Where can he hear them
say, "Welcome home, Jess-boy"? Jess-boy...

McLowry groaned, turning over on the bed, needing to
awake. But the dream pulled at him, dragging him into its swirling eddy of
despair.

Not this part. He tried to wake up. Please, his mind
cried, not this part.

Empty outbuildings, empty slaves’ cabins and barns.

Mrs. Handley, mistress of the neighboring plantation,
stands in the fields, her face dusty, her hair sweat-streaked. Loose-skinned,
flapping arms reach out for him, thin fingers clawing. "Jess-boy, is it
really you?"

Church-hospital. Pastor-doctor.

Mama...Lucy...

A woman in white looms before him. Lucy’s suffering
ended. Ended. No!

He pushes away from her. He needs to run. Back to
Glendorra. He’ll find Lucy. He’ll...

"Mama!" He holds her, but she’s already too
light, already disappearing from his life.

"We’ll rebuild Glendorra, Mama. I promise."

Her cold hand caresses his face, wipes away his tears.
"Build a life for yourself and Lucy, Jess. My strong, handsome Jess."

His chest aches with holding it in. But he can’t tell
her, he can’t tell his mama about Lucy.

"With you, Jess-boy, I know she’ll be safe. Don’t
cry, darling. Don’t cry for me."

"Come home, Mama. Please." But his arms are
empty now.

The woman in white holds the edge of the sheet covering
a child’s body. "Say good-bye to your little sister, soldier-boy."

"No. Let me go, let me--"

Iron-like fingers grip his wrist. "Be a man. Look
at her."

Clutching the edge of the winding-sheet, she yanks it
down.

"Don’t, please!" He can’t stop crying, but he
knows he has to look, to say good-bye to Lucy. He lowers his hands from his
eyes. But instead of the golden locks, the doll-like, cherubic face of his
eight-year old sister, there, on the cold church floor lies the pale, lifeless
form of Gabriella.

"
No!" McLowry bolted upright on the bed,
his heart pounding as he struggled to catch his breath.

He gripped the sheet-covered mattress and looked wildly
around the pale-lit room. His heart thumped. For years after the War, he had
dreamed about the horror he had found when he returned home--Glendorra in ruins
and diphtheria claiming his mother and sister. His father had been killed at
Shiloh, and his older brother captured and imprisoned in a Union death camp. At
age twelve, a few months before the War ended, McLowry had run away from home
and joined the Confederacy. He never saw his sister alive again, and his mother
had lived only one day after his return.

As the years went by, the nightmares had come to him less
often. But always before in his dream, it was Lucy he saw under the sheet,
looking more like a shriveled little old lady than the pretty little girl who
had lived, played and died at Glendorra.

He swung his legs off the bed and peered over his
shoulder. In the first light of morning he could see the mounds of blankets on
the floor. She still slept. Such a little thing, the blankets covering
her...just like in his dream. He shuddered and stood up, then ran his hands
across his face, rubbing his eyes, needing to wipe away the nightmare.

His head felt like a horse stampede had run over it, and
his eyes were gritty. Last night in the Copper Queen Saloon, a broncobuster
from Tucson had recognized him and decided cowpunching was too much work--that
being a hired gun was a way to make big bucks. He decided that challenging
McLowry--and winning--was the way to build his reputation overnight. But
instead of standing and drawing, McLowry had turned his back on the cowboy and
walked out of the saloon. Jeers and insults rang in his ears. Walking away like
that wasn’t easy to do, and someday, if he was in the wrong mood, or just
feeling mean, it might be impossible. He was sick of gunfighting, and he wasn’t
about to let some mule skinner make him kill or be killed for no good reason.
He left the Copper Queen and went two blocks over to the Mining Star. There, he
had to get shit-faced before he was able to squelch the desire to march right
back to the first saloon and let that weaselly slimeball get exactly what he
had coming to him.

All that booze was probably the reason that old memories
had come back to haunt him. Hell, if he’d known how bad his sleep was going to
be, he would have stayed the entire night with the brunette who had gotten his
attention by rubbing her leg against his at the Mining Star. She was the type
who could have chased away his nightmares. Instead, she had chased him out of
her bed.

After they’d made love, she had gone and gotten all clingy
on him, as if she was more than a whore and he was more than a has-been
gunfighter who had gone soft and possibly yellow, to hear the boys at the
Copper Queen tell it. He wasn’t in the mood for her games. He got up, got
dressed and walked out.

Now, he reached for his shirt and trousers, and put them
on. Then he gazed over at Gabe again. He wondered what kind of madness had overtaken
him that he had fancied himself the protector of a girl like her. It was a
full-time job to take care of himself and more than half the time he wondered
why he bothered.

He didn’t know beans about girls or women or how to take
care of them. And at twenty, Gabe was no child. The dancehall girl he was with
last night probably wasn’t any older. Not in years, anyway. He must be as loco
as the old desert rats who wander around talking to rocks to have gotten
himself into this mess. But if he had sent Gabe on her way and she had come
across Will Tanner or the other men she was after....